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Exploring Modern-Day Subsurface Habitability & Extant Life on Mars

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Exploring Modern-Day Subsurface Habitability & Extant Life on Mars The VALKYRIE* Mission Concepts Exploring the Modern Subsurface Habitability of Mars The Quest for Life Leads Underground: Exploring Modern-Day Subsurface Habitability & Extant Life on Mars A White Paper Submitted to the ESA Call for Voyage 2050 Contact Scientist Dr. Stamenković Vlada Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology 4800 Oak Grove Drive, M/S:183-301 Pasadena, CA 91109, USA Tel: +1 626-390-7631 Email: [email protected] i The VALKYRIE* Mission Concepts Exploring the Modern Subsurface Habitability of Mars Members of the Proposing Team 1. Pietro Baglioni, ESTEC, ESA, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 2. Christopher Ballentine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, 3. Luther Beegle, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, 4. Doris Breuer, German Aerospace Center DLR Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 5. Charles Cockell, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, 6. Véronique Dehant, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium, 7. Charles Edwards, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, 8. Raphael Garcia, ISAE, Toulouse, France, 9. Matthias Grott, German Aerospace Center DLR Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 10. Axel Hagermann, Univeristy of Stirling, Scotland, UK, 11. Fumio Inagaki, Institute for Marine-Earth Exploration and Engineering, Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Japan, 12. Taichi Kawamura, Université de Paris, Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Paris, France, 13. Nina Lanza, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, United States, 14. Robert E Grimm, Southwest Research Institute Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, 15. Philippe Lognonné, Université de Paris, Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Paris, France, 16. Bénédicte Ménez, Université de Paris, Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Paris, France, 17. Joseph Michalski, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 18. Michael Mischna, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, 19. John F Mustard, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States, 20. Victoria J Orphan, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, 21. Magdalena R Osburn, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States, 22. Ana-Catalina Plesa, German Aerospace Center DLR Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 23. Karyn L Rogers, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, United States, 24. Barbara Sherwood Lollar, University of Toronto, ON, Canada, 25. Tilman Spohn, International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland, 26. Fabien Stalport, Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques, Université Paris Créteil, France, 27. Vlada Stamenković, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, 28. Jorge Vago, ESTEC, ESA, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 29. Frances Westall, Université de Orléans, Orléans, France, 30. Kris Zacny, Honeybee Robotics, Pasadena, CA, United States. ii The VALKYRIE* Mission Concepts Exploring the Modern Subsurface Habitability of Mars Table of Contents 1 SCIENCE LEADING US UNDERGROUND .................................................................. 1-1 1.1 Questions ............................................................................................................ 1-1 1.2 Science Goals & Expected Significance .............................................................. 1-1 1.3 Motivation ........................................................................................................... 1-2 1.4 On the Shoulders of Giants: ExoMars 2020, InSight, MSL, Mars 2020 & MSR .. 1-4 1.5 Specific Technologies & Enabling Scientific Developments ................................ 1-5 2 PRELIMINARY CONCEPTS .......................................................................................... 2-6 2.1 An M- to L-Class Scenario Depending on Payload .............................................. 2-6 2.2 Enabling Technologies ...................................................................................... 2-14 2.3 Small Scale to L-Class Mission Concepts — Varying the Baseline Scenario ..... 2-19 3 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 3-21 iii The VALKYRIE* Mission Concepts Exploring the Modern Subsurface Habitability of Mars 1 Science Leading Us Underground 1.1 Questions The ExoMars rover, planned to land in 2021 on the Martian surface, will begin the journey to explore the shallow (<2 m) Martian subsurface and seek for signs of ancient and extinct life. As we describe below in greater detail, the most likely regions on modern Mars to find liquid water are at depths of kilometers. At these depths on Mars, environments might exist where microbes could still be alive. We propose that the next frontier for planetary exploration that should spearhead the Voyage 2050 is the Martian subsurface with the quest for modern-day habitable environments and extant life. Three broad questions are directing the trajectory of this journey: I. Is there liquid water in the modern-day Martian subsurface? How much is there? What is its chemistry? II. Are there large enough redox gradients and sufficient nutrients to support modern- day subsurface life on Mars? III. Is there extant life in the Martian subsurface today? If so, where is it and how much biomass and productivity are there? Such exploration, will, as we shall see later, ultimately also help address the following questions that are not directly related to modern-day habitability and extant life: IV. Was there life on Mars early on that is now extinct? V. What kind of & how much resources are in the Martian subsurface? VI. How did the water inventory and climate change across time? 1.2 Science Goals & Expected Significance Mars’s surface is today in many ways inhospitable to life, for two main reasons: 1. Liquid water environments are generally deep: Liquid water and most brines are only metastable on the Martian surface [1]. The conditions needed to keep water liquid are, for the majority of the planet, generally rather at depths of several kilometers in the subsurface [2] [3]. Only salts such as perchlorates or soils with very low thermal conductivity can shift this depth, locally, closer to the surface [1] but the availability of such salts is debated [4] [5]. 2. Organics are being destroyed on the surface: Organics are being bombarded by oxidizing radicals and harsh radiation on the surface to a yet to be determined depth. These two points illustrate a trade-off between depth, modern-day habitability, and signatures of life: although it is still debated to which extent, it is possible that the first few meters could be too harmful for modern life to exist, freshwater at kilometers depth might offer high water activity needed by life, and brines could offer locally shallower liquid water but with a lower water activity. We propose to include for Voyage 2050 payload/mission concepts that seek to explore the trade-offs between depth, modern-day habitability, and signatures of extant life on Mars with two goals & four objectives as described on the next page: 1-1 Predecisional information, for planning and discussion only The VALKYRIE* Mission Concepts Exploring the Modern Subsurface Habitability of Mars Goal 1: Quantify the trades for modern-day subsurface habitability with depth by determining A. Liquid water: the state of liquid water in the Martian subsurface, B. Energy & nutrients: subsurface geochemistry and changes with depth. C. Stability: the stability of biomolecules and changes with depth. Goal 2: Search for signs of extant subsurface life by determining D. Biomarkers and signatures of metabolic activity and changes with depth. These topics are directly relevant not only to modern habitability and the potential for extant life, but also to an emerging understanding of Mars’s dynamic climate, hydrosphere, atmosphere, geologic & geophysical history and ancient (and possibly extinct) life. Building on previous missions and the next generation subsurface explorers such as the ExoMars rover, planned to launch in 2020, we have the contextual knowledge to develop strategic targets and objectives, thus advancing the search for signs of life on Mars by extending our exploration from 2D to 3D (surface + subsurface) and going from searching for signs of extinct life to seeking signatures of extant life. 1.3 Motivation Access to the Martian subsurface offers an unprecedented opportunity to search for the "holy grail" of astrobiology—evidence of possibly still habitable subsurface environments and maybe even extant life—a journey started by the Viking landers more than four decades ago. Analyzed samples would also deliver the puzzle pieces needed to help complete our understanding of how the Martian climate, carbonates, chemical deposits and volatile inventories changed over time and may have impacted, or may have been impacted by, life. The proposed concepts might also hold the key for understanding the chances for ancient (and possibly extinct) subsurface life. Evidence from orbiters and rovers suggests a once “warmer and wetter” Mars and recent results from the MAVEN mission demonstrated that a significant fraction of the Martian atmosphere was lost early in the planet’s history [e.g., [6] [7] [8] amongst many others]. As its atmosphere thinned, the flux of harmful radiation reaching the Martian surface would have increased and the surface temperatures would have cooled well below the freezing point of water. Consequently, the cryosphere would have thickened and stable groundwater would have moved to greater depths below
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